August 2, 2012

Name:

Léa

Age:

Fourteen months old

Gender:

Female

Kind:

Cape Parrot

Home:

Ontario, Canada

Léa
is a young female Cape parrot (Grey headed parrot, Poicephalus
fuscicollis suahelicus). She has been DNA'd as a baby, as all young Capes
look the same. However, after their first big molt, males will lose the
coral-colored cap on their head. Although people in aviculture here do use
the term "Cape parrot" (or sometimes UnCape parrot), she's not a true Cape
parrot; I doubt any are available as pets in North America. You will
generally either find Brown necked parrots or Grey headed parrots (Léa
is the latter). The true Cape parrots are currently endangered in the wild.
You can see the distribution
areas of the three types of Capes (the "true",
brown necked and grey headed (Léa is the latter)).

Léa is special to me as she's been my ultimate "dream parrot". I have
an affinity for Poicephalus parrots (in fact, in my flock of seven, six are
Pois). Capes are pretty hard to come by in Canada and I had to wait a few
years before I was finally able to add one to my flock.

She is still very much a baby and hasn't entirely shed her clumsy ways. She
is quite active and loves to either fly around the house or hop from place to
place. She loves wooden toys and goes through them at a reasonably fast pace
- and as she gets older, she seems to be developing a "taste" for harder
woods that pose a challenge.

She also has her cuddle moments where all she wants is to get as close as she
can to me and have her head scratched. It really is hard to resist her when
she's that sweet and gentle!

Although "talking" is not in any way a requirement I had when bringing any of
my parrots home, Léa has started to show signs of wanting to use human
words. Her vocabulary has been growing over the past few months and she has
used words in context, which was all the more impressive.

She's been a hoot to have around and hopefully we'll be able to share many
more years together.